The invention relates to the field of electric current measurement and concerns more particularly a device for measuring such currents having a wide measuring range and capable of suitably operating in a difficult environment.
The measurement of DC currents of high strength is difficult with the usual measuring devices, in some environments, particularly in electric power stations or electrochemical factories. In fact, in such environments, the high voltages, the high temperatures, the possibly corrosive atmosphere, the electromagnetic pollution or quite simply the difficulty of access make measurements difficult and unreliable when they are carried out by conventional means such as the shunt or Hall-effect gauge type, for example. Thus, in order to measure currents of the order of about a hundred thousand amps, current-measuring devices of the shunt type only allow accuracy of the order of 10% of the measured value to be obtained. Furthermore, such devices cause energy losses in the measuring device.